The three leisurely days after CHEA (Wisconsin) and before departing for ICHE (Chicago) were spent doing laundry, lounging around, doing laundry, eating watermelon, doing laundry, playing trackball, and doing laundry. The main goal was laundry, but we had to pass the time between hearing the buzzer for the dryer or the beep for the washer.
Another main goal is all the kids packing up their leisure activities for the drive in the bus. For some, this means yarn and crochet hooks. For others, pillows. For still others, celery.
Joanna was able to finish up her present for Ken Ham.
Noah is the self-proclaimed navigator, which means he watches our blue-ball progress on Daddy's phone. Sarah decided to brush up on learning sign language with some of the cool books she scored at CHEA...
We decided to not rough it this time, instead using Daddy's frequent flyer miles to secure a couple of very very very nice suites. So at least the routine waiting for the bathroom took place in air conditioned, relatively tick-free surroundings.
Some of Sarah's siblings chipped in to buy her a fairly chip-less new guitar for her 18th.
The rooms made for very restful evenings, and were conveniently located between the conference venue and a huge Goodwill.
The sleepy, ten-toe salute!
Compared to the low turnout at CHEA, ICHE was a big change...
Toto, we're not in Oconomowoc anymore...
We opted to register the whole family because the speaker line-up was fabulous. Jim Woychuk of Scripture Memory Fellowship gave an edifying and exciting talk on "Historical Examples of World Transformation," giving details of the lives of those whose lives were changed through the power of God's Word. It was one of the most profitable sessions at ICHE.
Joshie found the talk nutritious as well as inspiring.
The high point for some of the kids was sitting in the highest point of the huge auditorium during Ken Ham's sessions at ICHE. When we first took our seats, there were a lot of empty rows...
But in no time at all, we realized they were filled to the tippy top!
What we have appreciated and thanked God for was that Ken's message of the authority of the Bible has not changed or diminished in the 15 or so years we have been blessed to hear and read his materials. Our older kids grew up being able to recite "billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth."
There was a portable planetarium at ICHE, which the kids all enjoyed!
It was a homemade setup, very sophisticated, with tons of great information.
The igloo houses the planetarium!
Our ICHE table served as a meeting place (and our Klein meeting place). We had a great time talking to young parents, older parents, and parents in general.
Joshie was a trooper and felt right at home at ICHE.
Here is a dining area at ICHE where you can watch Ken Ham on the flat screens on the wall while you eat your lunch or sit with fussy little ones.
Here is our umpteenth photo of us with Ken Ham, this time at ICHE. He appreciated the koala bear Joanna crocheted. I wonder if it is the first he's received?
We caught all of Mr. Ham's sessions from the eagle's nest. Fortunately, we have lots of videos at home, so we can actually see his face.
Joshie could hear everything just fine, but really, you need binoculars at this altitude.
We tweeted for the first time at ICHE...
We were also blessed to finally meet Diana Waring, who has also been a blessing to our family for many years. She was one of the first to introduce us to wonderful missionary books and many creation science book titles, too! We caught several of her talks at ICHE, including the finale, which was on MISSIONARIES!
She really dug the matching outfits, too!
Everybody smile and say, "Isn't that the wildest thing you've ever heard?????"
Now, when it comes to photo-documenting, we are pretty small potatoes (although pretty numerous potatoes) compared to Team Weaver which kept ICHE covered and on the cover...
Whether they are eating cupcakes or pulling teeth, you will find at least one armed with a portable pixel-snatcher, so beware!
Our dear friends in Wisconsin...we meet again...
Big sisters understand these things.
Smile!
Here's Solomon keeping on top of things during the tense pre-registration days of CocoaConf -- ak! We're live now!
Time to pack it all up. We inventory our materials as we pack, so we can be ready for the next conference...
Everyone is quietly counting to themselves, then shouting out their total to Hannah, causing everyone else to say, "Drat!" and start counting again....five, ten, fifteen, twenty....
The perceptive blog reader will have noticed many instances of "ICHE" in this post. We are just curious as to how you mentally pronounced ICHE.
A continuing controversy here at our house is regarding how to pronounce "URL". Mommy continues to pronounce it "earl," while those in the know assure me that it's pronounced "You are L". This is totally inconsistent with the pronunciation of such things as DOS (DOS 3.0 rules!), ASCII, but of course, with terms such as CP/M, you could do nothing else. But with an acronym beginning with a vowel, it would seem obvious that you say it as a word..."earl".
Somehow, family unity prevailed in our pre-ICHE days; we ALL referred to the event as "itchy" (earl earl earl).
Is that what you did, dear reader?
As we registered for ICHE, we decided it would be wise to ask how one officially pronounces ICHE. As I was filling out the form, I asked, "Do you pronounce it 'itchy'?"
All eyes darted to the ICHE representative as she prepared an answer to this obviously unexpected question.
(In retrospect, I should have said, "How does one pronounce the name of your organization?")
While she did not roll her eyes, she had a somewhat quizzical look as she said,
"We say I. C. H. E."
